After quite a hiatus, this blog is now being used for another class, my advanced theory elective, ‘Databases, Archives and the Virtual Experience of Art’ (DM8305), and in particular to document the process of working through our first assignment.
Original text of assignment:
“In order to understand the ‘logic’ of archives and databases, it may be helpful to self-consciously experience the organizational imperative at the heart of these enterprises. With this project each student will be provided with a DVD with a total of 100 still images on it. The goal of this project is for each student to produce their own archive based on these 100 images. Faced with a disparate array of images and media one must produce a categorization system that takes into account all of the material. Consider the digital photographs as the contents of the ‘archive’ while the separate categorization system exists as the ‘database’ that indicates how one is to access the archive (your organization of the material). Be consicous, too, of the form that your archive/database will take. Will you use a set of virtual folders, a slide sequence with captions, or…? DVD is the media upon which your final work is to be submitted.
Note: you can formulate this ‘archive’ to operate within the traditional definition of archives (i.e. a site where disparate materials considered historically significant are preserved, stored and organized for potential future purposes) or consider using the archiving and database production process as a form of critique of these kinds of organizational enterprises (i.e. working with conventional forms in a self-reflexive manner in order to foreground the process of institutional categorization).
The project is to be handed in on a DVD labeled with your name, the class, year and assignment title, please, and then presented to the class in the following two weeks.
DUE DATES: DVDs due Week 9, Nov. 6; presentations to class on Weeks 10 & 11
GRADE: 30%”
Since the project was assigned on Thursday 11 September 2008 there have been several class discussions elaborating and adjusting the requirements, not least because it was decided to roll a third assignment (a 2500-word essay) into the 100 Images project. First, it was decided that other forms for submission/presentation than DVD can be used (i.e. a website). Second, we are required to document our process throughout the assignment (hence this blog’s current content). Third, we are required to compose a summary of 750-2500 words (3-10 pages) that covers a) our process, in which we describe production, thoughts and decisions, and b) our artist statement or rationale or philosophical basis for the decisions we made – in other words, what we are bringing to bear on the process. Presumably this alters the value of this assignment toward final grading.
I began making hand-written notes on 14 September, so I will type these in separate entries.
